Grimjack was the story of John Gaunt, a sword for hire in the dangerous city
of Cynosure, where realities fade in and out of synch with the city, and
literally anything can happen. A former gladiator, spy, demon fighting soldier,
and much more besides, Gaunt was known on the streets as Grimjack, one of
the deadliest men in a deadly world.

Created by John Ostrander and Tim Truman, Grimjack was published by First,
and ran for 81 regular monthly issues, having started as a back-up feature
in Starslayer, another First title. It also had a graphic novel, two Munden's
Bar specials, and Grimjack guested in some First specials, such as Crossroads
and The Gift. Since the company went bust, Grimjack has been tied up in
litigation, as Ostrander tries to sort out the legal mess of who actually
owns him and bring him back into print (for my money, whatever the legal
case, the moral one is clear - Ostrander created the character and wrote
him for his entire run).

Grimjack went through a number of changes and growths during its run, most
noticeably having John Gaunt replaced by Jim Twilley, his own reincarnation
some two hundred years later. It was an exciting, daring series, that never
failed to amaze or deliver. Hopefully one day soon, Grimjack, in whatever
incarnation, will raise his scarred face once again, show us that death's
head grin of his, and we'll again be treated to the kind of mayhem only Cynosure
can give us.

Other people, groups and events in Cynosure that didn't get their own
entry

THE PIT - The nastiest section of Cynosure, where poverty and violence
are a way of life. Gaunt was born and raised there.

THE ARENA - During Gaunt's youth gladiatorial games were legal, and
children could even be sold to fight and die, as Gaunt and Blackjac both
discovered. The Dancer was the most famous of the fighters to come out of
the Arena, but after he led an uprising following the Demon Wars, the games
were finally banned.

WOLFPAC - The young toughs of the Arena, which included Gaunt, Blackjac
and Nasty Detmer, were called the Wolfpac.

UNCLE
WILLY - Trainer of the kids in the Wolfpacs in Gaunt's arena days. By
his own admission he "never like Wolfpac - then, now. Then I trained cubs
so mebbee some survive, eh? Some few." After the arena's were shut down he
made a new profession for himself. "These days he ran the Powder Bourne,
where he tended, mended, and supplemented my (Grimjack's) supply of weapons."
When Gaunt lost his hand at the end of the Trade Wars, it was Uncle Willy
who outfitted him with a prosthetic.

DEMON WARS - Some twenty years before the start of the comic, the
gates of Hell opened on Cynosure - literally. Demons poured into the city,
preying on anyone they could find. Only the fact that some parts of the city
would not support magic, and hence were inaccessible to the demons, prevented
Cynosure from being overrun - these sections became the Havens. Gaunt and
Blackjac were amongst the warriors who fought to contain the demons and drive
them out. Eventually, at great cost, they succeeded, but the city remains
in constant fear of their return.

FEETUS -
"Feetus
was a war vet. Both his legs got blown off while he was saving his battalion
from a demon attack during the Fort Leone siege. While Feetus was in surgery,
his C.O. grabbed all the glory. Feetus got an honorable discharge and a surplus
anti-grav sled." "Feetus supplemented his income with information - gathering
and disseminating. He had the best ears and the most discreet mouth in the
pit."

Just prior to the outbreak of the Trade Wars Gaunt trusted Feetus to hold
some letters for him as a form of insurance. Unfortunately for Feetus, the
Dancer's agents Dink and Katar were watching, killed him and took the letters.

PDWYR - Just prior to the start of the Demon Wars John Gaunt stumbled
into an idyllic pocket dimension hidden from Cynosure. He fell in love there,
but when Major Lash stumbled in, having narrowly escaped demon forces, and
told Gaunt of the battle going on elsewhere, Gaunt felt his duty forced him
to return to assist in the fight. However Pdwyr's position was betrayed to
the Demons by the Major, and their ravening hordes laid waste to the land
and killed all its people. For a long time Gaunt guiltily believed it was
his fault the land had been found.

MAETHE MATHONWY - Lord of Pdwyr, magician, mentor to Grimjack and
father to Rhian. He died when Pdwyr was invaded by the Demons.

RHIAN - Lady of Pdwyr, she and John Gaunt fell in love when he unwittingly
stumbled into her dimension. She died at the hands of the invading Demons
while Gaunt was away fighting.

THE DANCER'S UPRISING - Shortly after the Demon Wars the former gladiator
turned crimelord known as the Dancer forged an army out of ex-arena fighters
and the poor of the Pit in an attempt to seize power. He failed, and he and
his lieutenants were believed to have burned to death in a fire. Arena blood
sports are banned as a result of his insurrection.

CADRE - "Cadre was created to deal with threats to Cynosure's safety
after the Demon Wars." "Cadre was Cynosure's answer to the Dancer's rebellion.
Cadre's orders were simple: to deal with any and all threats to the city's
safety." John Gaunt was one of the first recruits: "When I first joined
Cadre there were only twelve of us, operating out of the home of Cadre's
founding director, a man named Mayfair. We were told the ends mattered, but
the means didn't. By the time I left Cadre it had swollen into an organisation
employing thousands and occupying its own high-rise fortress. The means by
this time had become ends unto themselves."

The agency was run by Mayfair. The employed
teams of assassins dressed in clown costumes, known as Harlequin Squads.

TRANS-DIMENSIONAL POLICE - The police force of Cynosure, mostly corrupt.
Doesn't care what happens in the Pit so long as it stays in the Pit, because
the people there are poor. Gaunt worked for the TDP for a while, and Roscoe
and Noleski still do.

PORTABLE REALITY GENERATORS - "Back-pack sized units; projects a relative
functional reality around the wearer - lets your weapons and vehicles work
no matter what the physical laws are of the dimension you're in. PRGs let
the TDP function in all the dimensions of Cynosure and were sometimes the
only edge they had."

THE SHADOW COPS - "The Shadow Cops were the TDP's answer to Cadre."
An "elite bunch of undercover cops. Work in the Pit, playing bad guy to bust
bad guys, keepin' their ears to th' ground so's to nail th' big stuff before
it happens." One member went rogue and when the rest of his unit discovered
this, they covered for him, even killing and framing a regular TDP cop to
hide their man's crimes. But Gaunt exposed this, and those Shadow Cops went
down in a hail of gunfire. The rest of the Shadow Cops were disbanded, leaving
Cadre the only sanctioned covert unit in the city - just the way Mayfair
planned it.

LILLIAN
SEFFINGTON - Head of the Shadow Cops and one-time lover of John Gaunt.
When Gaunt exposed the corruption in her unit, she disbanded it and retired.

When the Trade Wars erupted she was returned to work as the head of the city's
security, since she was untainted by the corporations. She was killed by
the Bullyboy attack on the peace conference which had been called to end
the war.

MUNDEN'S BAR - "A small dive on the lip of the pan-dimensional city
of Cynosure." Owned by John Gaunt, with Gordon as the barman, Munden's has
hosted many illustrious visitors from other realities who have wandered into
the city unknowingly. By Jim Twilley's time a creature called Skuzzy was
running it, but Gaunt's will allowed Twilley to reclaim it as his base of
operations.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CYNOSURE - "The only artificially created dimension
in Cynosure. All rules of science, magic, and alien technologies work within
its walls - the better to be explored and exploited. The university reflects
the city. Commerce is Cynosure's politics and its religion. So the only thing
they don't teach at the U of Cyn is ethics."

THE ETERNITY ROAD - "Actually a paved dimensional portal that allowed
transportation of large amounts of goods with the dimensions that aren't
in phase with the city."

THE OUTLANDS - "The ring of blasted and baked territory that ringed
Cynosure. Some thought it was a dimension of its own. Mostly what it was
was desolate. And in some spots, dangerous." Jericho Noleski patrolled the
outlands on behalf of the TDP.

TOURBOTS - little robots controlled from a distance. The user sees
and feels what the tourbot sees and feels, but without pain or risk of injury
if the robot is damaged. They are used in Gaunt's time by tourists to sight
see around the sometimes dangerous city. They are not allowed in Munden's
Bar. By Twilley's time the remote control technology has been combined with
"virgin cloning" techniques to create the Zuvembie's.

BOB - the
watch lizard, who eats the vermin in Munden's Bar, as well as sitting with
Gaunt during his dark moods and drinking sessions. Originally he and his
family lived in the waters under Devil's Bridge with the rest of his kind,
until trappers turned up to capture the males for their singing voices, killing
the rest. All but Bob died very quickly in captivity, before Bob was sold
to a rich aristo who used him as a party animal for his guests to torture.
But Gaunt crashed the party on the trail of the Manx Cat statue, and rescued
Bob as an afterthought. Now Bob considers the merc as his family.

PROFESSOR
ALTHEA MUELLER - scientist at the University of Cynosure. She suffered
a stroke from overwork, but her patron (the Dancer) wanted her to continue
her research. Her mind was transferred from her damaged body to that of a
"virgin" clone whose body was undamaged. However it took help from Grimjack
to re-integrate her mind with her new body. A few months later she called
on his help again, and he discovered that her clone body, artificially aged
to adulthood, has a deficient immune system leaving her dying from multiple
infections. She had created a device which would allow the user to prevent
dimensions from joining or rejoining Cynosure. The Dancer used this during
the Trade Wars he had engineered to cut Cynosure off from the rest of the
multiverse, and had Mueller hidden in another dimension until he needed her
again. But when she found out what her invention had been used for, she
sacrificed herself trying to stop it.

THE TRADE WARS - Fifteen years after the Dancer's last attempt to
take over the city, he tried again. His last attempt had exploited the fact
that the city had been weakened by the Demon Wars. This time he engineered
a war between the corporations in the city, deliberately leaking to the press
that the Alpha Centauri Commercial Empire had been covertly taking over the
Council one seat at a time.

Grimjack retrieves the Manx Cat for a client, before being hired by Elvanna,
the last surviving follower of the god Manwyyes to locate her deity. All
the rest of her people have been slaughtered by Zago, God of the Blood Red
Sun, and Elvanna used a mystic ritual to take her to her god, only to end
up in Cynosure. Gaunt takes her to a run down bar where he introduces her
to a drunk Manny Weese, a.k.a. Manwyyes.

Manny is a drunk who stumbled into Elvanna's dimension, only to discover
he had god-like powers there. But the pressure got too much, so he returned
home to Cynosure. Zago turns up, looking to kill his rival, but Gaunt manages
to slice and dice him with his own sword.

Gaunt is hired by Cracker, an old acquaintance, to find out who has turned
him into a vampire. Cracker believes the guilty party is the boyfriend of
a girl he was with, a vampire known as Grinner. Grinner used to be Gaunt's
street name twenty years back. Gaunt finds the girl at Wolfingham's, a werewolf
joint. She flees, Gaunt in pursuit, but he is attacked by a Harlequin Squad.

Grimjack makes short work of the Harlequin Squad, recognising them as operatives
of Cadre, Cynosure's secret service which he used to belong to many years
back. He then tracks the vampire girl back to her home in Suburbia.

Gaunt awakens, surprisingly unharmed. He goes to visit Cadre to find out
their involvement with the case, and meets his old boss Mayfair. Mayfair
admits that CADRE is trying to recruit the "vampyr" as an agent, believing
it may be the last one left over from the Demon Wars and thus an irreplaceable
resource. Escaping from CADRE's headquarters, Gaunt next visits his old partner
Roscoe at the Transdimensional Police, who helps him locate which dimension
was last in phase during the Demon Wars and has only just returned to Cynosure
- the likely home of the vampire. The only one that fits the bill is Pdwyr,
and Gaunt, now realising who the vamp must be, heads there to bury his past.

Gaunt returns to Pdwyr where he confronts Grinner, a.k.a. Gdeon, brother
to his dead love Rhian. Both Cracker and a Harlequin Squad interrupt the
conversation, which gets them a terminal rebuke from Grimjack. Gaunt then
puts his old friend out of his misery.

Gaunt is hired by Sondra Grant to find the truth behind why her daughter
committed suicide, and why her soul, unable to rest, is now coming back each
night to repeat her traumatic demise. It turns out the girl had been tricked
into becoming a drug addict in order to use her as blackmail material against
her influential father, finance minister William Honesworth, and rather than
allow this to happen, had killed herself first. Tracking the truth down leads
to the deaths of all those who had been involved in the sordid attempt at
blackmailing Honesworth.

A young boy hires Grimjack to save his father. Their family has fallen into
poverty, and in a desperate attempt to get some money, the father has decided
to enter an illegal arena death match. Gaunt locates the arena and takes
the father's place, winning the bout against his titanic opponent Bullyboy
(though not easily). But the announcer at the match is MacCabre, a follower
of the Dancer, and long believed dead. His return means that the Dancer,
and major trouble, cannot be far behind.

Gaunt informs Blackjac of his father's return, and the two go to Blackfriar's
Hall, MacCabre's former stronghold. Breaking in, they discover that MacCabre
is growing hundreds of Bullyboys like the one Gaunt faced in the blood match.
The fights have been a test for the prototype, checking it for endurance
and ability to take punishment, before the rest are used by the Dancer as
the vanguard of his army in a fresh uprising. Discovered, Gaunt and Blackjac
face off against MacCabre, who claims he used Blackjac's siblings as the
raw materials for the creatures. Blackjac defeats his father in combat, and
Grimjack cuts off his hand when he subsequently tries to shoot his son in
the back. The two mercenaries leave the wounded villain to his fate and get
out just before the grenades Gaunt planted amongst some oxygen cylinders
blow the place sky high. They are watched as they depart by Katar and the
Dancer.

Grimjack is hired to protect a singer after he is grazed by a would be assassin
during the run up to a one off comeback concert. But Gaunt fails, and the
mad fan kills his true target - the singer's wife whom he blames for his
idol's retirement.

Asked by Roscoe to investigate the death of his wife's nephew, who has been
used as a patsy to cover up thefts of PRGs from the TDP, Gaunt follows a
lead out to Eternity Road in the Outlands, where he runs into TDP cop Jericho
Noleski. Ambushed at Noleski's home, the Dead-End (Service) Station, the
two manage to get away, but the station is blown up. Jericho has also been
used as a patsy in the thefts, and is less than happy about it, so he decides
to accompany Gaunt back into Cynosure to get to the bottom of things.

Noleski and Gaunt run the police blockades back into Cynosure, and hide out
in Roscoe's office at TDP Central. Noleski goes through police files, trying
to locate a man he saw with Roscoe's nephew prior to his death, but he is
not on the TDP books. Gaunt and Roscoe figure this makes him a Shadow Cop,
the TDP's answer to Cadre. So Gaunt calls on Mayfair, head of Cadre, to provide
the files on his rivals for Jericho to peruse, and this time the man they
want is in there. Having identified the culprit Gaunt turns to Lillain
Seffington, head of the Shadow Cops and old flame, to tell her of the corruption
in her organisation and enlist her aid. She refuses to believe him, so Gaunt
knocks her out and carries her out her house over his shoulder.

Using Lillian as a bargaining chip Gaunt confronts the Shadow Cops. They
plan an ambush, but Noleski puts a stop to that idea. It turns out that one
Shadow Cop was blackmailed into stealing a PRG for an unnamed criminal, and
upon discovering this, the others covered for him, even though it cost the
life of Roscoe's nephew and led to framing Grimjack and Jericho. Planning
to murder the two, plus Lillian who has witnessed their confession, they
are themselves caught in an ambush, this one set by Gaunt and Roscoe. Surrounded
by regular TDP they die in a hail of gunfire trying to shoot their way out.
The Shadow Cops are discredited and disbanded; Gaunt meanwhile realises the
whole thing was engineered from the start by Mayfair to eliminate Cadre's
only rival.

Its election time in Cynosure. When Gaunt recognises one of the candidates
as being an old associate, Crayne, a con man, he decides to help him survive
the election feeling that having a tame politician may be useful after some
of the recent events in his life. But Crayne doesn't want to win, as he has
taken so many bribes in return for services to be rendered if he wins that
he would never be able to fulfill all the promises he has made. Unfortunately
his airhead act endears himself to the populace, and he wins by a landslide.
In the end he fakes his own death to avoid his creditors catching him up.

An attempt to revive the mind of a scientist (Professor Althea Mueller) at
the Uni of C goes badly wrong, and Grimjack has to go into a psychic vortex
where the subconscious is given form in order to rescue her. But given the
state of his own mind, this is not a venture without risk.

Gaunt has travelled back in time to the Wild West period of America's history,
having been hired by the TDP to retrieve anachronistic weapons that an
unscrupulous trader has sold to the locals (uzis and the like). He encounters
the (now arrested) trader's agent on the ground, a lady known as Spook, and
offers her a deal; he'll let her go if she helps him retrieve the weapons.
The locals who bought the weapons object to this deal, but can't stop the
two from Cynosure from hijacking a train that was taking the guns south,
where their American buyer was planning to use them to establish a new
Confederate republic.

Briefly eluding their pursuers, Spook and Gaunt are prevented from accessing
the entrance to the Eternity Road by Major Lash and his Lawkillers. Lash
wants Gaunt to hand Spook over to him, but he refuses to co-operate. A stand-off
lasts into the night, until Gaunt and Spook manage to set the pursuing locals
off against the Lawkillers, gaining them the chance to get through the gateway,
which Gaunt explosively seals, leaving the Major and his men stranded.

Manwyyes and Elvanna ask for Gaunt's help in locating a young boy they had
helped at their mission, who subsequently went missing; the boy had stumbled
into Cynosure and quickly been forced to turn to prostitution to survive.
He finds the child, but he is dead, and has been sold as food to one of the
alien species that inhabit the city. It transpires that one of the other
young prostitutes on the streets has found a way to make extra money and
cut down his competition at the same time.

Roscoe is ordered by his superior to bring Grimjack in after a young bravo
who was seen to best him in a fight is found dead shortly afterwards. But
Roscoe demonstrates his detective skills, proving that he is a capable cop
when he puts his mind to it, and proves that the true killer was the young
thug's business partner, who killed him to get his hands on the stolen Manx
Cat. Gaunt, as always, recovers the Cat, while Roscoe clears his friend's
name.

Grimjack is hired by Professor Mueller to deliver some cargo, in spite of
the attempts of Lord Phaeton to stop him. He manages to do so, and drops
Phaeton off in Ch'ukee (dimension of cuddly animals in Starslayer #17) as
it goes out of phase with they city. But without knowing it, he has furthered
the Dancer's plans.

Roscoe calls Grimjack to let him know someone has roughed up Uncle Willy,
his trainer from the days he was in the Wolfpacs in the Arena. Willy had
been asked to train a new Wolfpac, and had refused. Upon hearing this, Gaunt
gets Blackjac, and after the latter has ordered his lady, Goddess not to
try and accompany them, the two start to track down whoever is behind this
new Arena. They trace their way to the estate of Linus van Feldt, a
minor aristo married to former Wolfpac member Nasty Detmer. Unfortunately
both of them are captured when they try to break the children free, only
to awaken in the Arena, unarmed and chained to a post, as the new Wolfpac,
children they don't want to hurt, approach them with knives, drugged so that
they do not know what they are doing.

In spite of Blackjac's instructions , Goddess intervenes. With her assistance,
Gaunt and Blackjac escape the new Arena. Gaunt finds out that C'Janus, the
heir of the Alpha Centauri Commercial Empire, is the real patron behind Nasty
Detmer's games, and that the company has been slowly taking over the ruling
Council using blackmail and other covert methods, removing those who couldn't
be controlled, such as Lillian Seffington (#5-7), by other means. Gaunt gathers
proof of this, gives it to Feetus as security, and then confronts the head
of the company. Facing the threat of exposure, he allows Gaunt to kill C'Janus.
However Katar and Dink, two of Dancer's lieutenant's, have killed Feetus
and sent the proof to the press, and a trade war engulfs the city.

Finally the strands that have run through the previous issues come together:

The corporations have been at war now for five weeks, turning the city into
a battlefield. The dimensions that can force themselves out of phase with
the city, so that by the end of the third week, the city has lost nearly
half it's mass. Then suddenly the walls of the bubble that contain the city
within the pan-dimensional vortex polarize, sealing the city off. No longer
can dimensions enter or leave Cynosure. A peace conference is finally arranged
in a dimension that only allows low-tech and just enough magic for supernatural
creatures to live, but not to use magical spells. William Honesworth (whose
daughter committed suicide in #1, causing him to eventually resign out of
grief) is the only person the guilds trust enough to listen to - Gaunt is
his bodyguard. Lillian Seffington, former head of the Shadow Cops, also comes
out of retirement to run what is left of the city's security forces. At Gaunt's
suggestion Blackjac and his mercs beef up the security detail and Spook becomes
Lillian's bodyguard.

Just as Honesworth seems to have made progress Bullyboys (#2, #3) armed
with PRG's (#5-7) charge in firing. Lillian is killed by the bullets from
one Bullyboy, and the good guys are forced to try and kill the Bullyboys
in hand to hand and then take their PRG's so that their guns can work. Roscoe
takes a bullet, but survives. The truce that Honesworth arranged is shattered,
as all the corporations blame the others for the attack. Realising that Professor
Mueller may be able to explain what has happened to the vortex, Gaunt sends
Spook to find her. He meanwhile is going to see Mayfair - Bullyboys with
PRGs ties Dancer in with Mayfair. Gaunt accuses Mayfair of working with the
Dancer to cause the Trade War - Mayfair admits as much - everything has been
a carefully laid out plan - eliminate the rival covert agency that might
uncover the plot - use Grimjack, known for his independence and honesty,
to reveal the plot C'Janus had for taking over the Council, a plot Dancer
suggested to him in the first place, and guarantee that Grimjack would be
involved by setting up a new Wolfpac to get his interest - start a war that
would undermine the current powers in the city and use Mueller's device to
cut the city down to a manageable size, and then have Dancer show up as the
hero who saves the day, thus bringing him to power. Mayfair believes that
Dancer ruling would be for the greatest good of the city, and hence he went
along with the plan.

Autopia (Munden's Bar back-up story, for once ties in with main story)

Spook tracks Mueller down to a high-tech dimension were she has been hidden
by Katar. In this dimension Mueller is immortal, which is just as well, as
time moves far faster here than in Cynosure. Mueller has been here millennia.
But Spook can barely hold on to her own integrity in this dimension, and
without a PRG cannot take Mueller back with her. So Spook flees and heads
back to Munden's Bar to update the rest of the crew.

Gaunt is in the grip of the Dark, so Honesworth sends Jericho with Blackjac
and Spook to retrieve Mueller. Honesworth meanwhile plans to contact the
warring conglomerates again and try to arrange another truce, but when he
gets back to his HQ he is met by Mayfair, who wishes to discuss terms for
the city's surrender. Gaunt is on the trail of Feetus' killer, encountering
Manwyyes while doing so, who is cradling his dead follower Elvanna in his
arms. Asking Gaunt what he should do with her, he is told "Find a hole and
put her in it." The trio looking to recover Mueller go through a dimensional
gate to where she should be, only to have it blown up behind her by Dancer's
men, stranding them. Mayfair threatens that if he does not get the surrender,
the vortex walls will be turned off, destroying the city entirely, and Gaunt
tracks Katar back to Fort Leone, the flying fortress he and Feetus were once
based out off during the Demon Wars.

Sandtrap (Munden's Bar back-up story, for once ties in with main story)

The wounded Roscoe makes it to Munden's to share a drink with Gordon. Meanwhile
the trio hunting Mueller find themselves on a dead world, centuries having
passed since Spook's earlier visit. They start bickering almost immediately,
with Noleski annoying Blackjac with his nicknames and refusing to trust a
haunt like Spook. They are ambushed by the Dancer's men, and during the fight
Blackjac is accidentally shot by Jericho. The raging emotions around her
drive Spook away, as she cannot defend herself from them in this dimension.
Jericho tries to carry Blackjac back to the city for help, but the wounded
man awakens and thinking Jericho is trying to finish him off, stabs him.
The two injured me collapse, dying under the desert sun.

Honesworth sees no choice but to surrender to Mayfair and the Dancer. Meanwhile
Gaunt sneaks into Fort Leone, confronting Mueller en route to his face off
with Katar. Mueller longs for death, but is scared of suicide in case
reincarnation brings her back in an even worse existence - Gaunt, fully caught
in the Dark, asks her how another life could be worse than the one she has
now, being stuck in a decaying body for the last several millennia. She realises
the truth of his words, and as Gaunt leaves the room she picks up a gun.
Gaunt confronts Katar, and the younger man is winning until one of Mueller's
clones arrives with the news that Mueller is destroying the vortex walls.
Katar strikes Gaunt with what he thinks is a killing blow and rushes off
to stop her: Gaunt however survives. As katar kills Mueller, Gaunt gets to
the control chamber and shoots him dead. With the vortex walls coming
down, Gaunt starts firing wildly at Mueller's machinery and the Fort's control
mechanisms. The flying fortress crashes to the ground, but the vortex walls
remain intact. Honesworth withdraws the city's surrender, and Mayfair and
Dancer skulk off to try another day, happy that at least the seem to have
killed Grimjack.

Dead End (Munden's Bar back-up story, for once ties in with main story)

Spook returns to her fallen companions, who are still narrowly clinging to
life - but in her insubstantial state she cannot help them. She needs a miracle
- and she gets one. Manwyyes, now a towering giant, looms overhead. It seems
that this was the realm he was once a god for, and so he cannot be denied
entrance to it by anything. He has come to take Gaunt's advice and put Elvanna
in the ground. Spook convinces the god to heal the others, and they return
to Munden's in time to stop some thugs from trashing the joint. Manwyyes
remains behind, renewing the world in the hope that one day Elvanna might
also be reborn.

Grimjack, tired and injured, hides up in a safe house waiting to die. He
knows that all those with a grudge will come after him with a view to finishing
him off. He hallucinates the ghosts of past foes attacking him, but is saved
from these dreams by the ghost of Maethe Mathonwy. One of his visions finally
shows us how he got his trademark scar - his father slashed him with a broken
bottle during a drunken rage. Meanwhile outside his friends stand guard over
him: Blackjac, Goddess, Gordon, Roscoe, Jericho and Spook. But one enemy
does penetrate the defences - the Dancer drops by to deliver a message. He
and Mayfair have parted company, but "Sooner or later, we will fight another
war for control of Cynosure. Unlike the Trade War, this one will be fought
entirely in shadow."

Uncle Willy has outfitted Gaunt with a new prosthetic "hand", deliberately
kept low-tech so that it will work in every dimension. Gaunt admits he is
falling for Spook, perhaps because unlike the other women he has gotten close
to, he believes he cannot hurt her; she is already dead. New "Hot Cops",
cyborg police, have been brought in with so many of the TDP dead. Honesworth
asks Gaunt to become a one-man version of Cadre, but he refuses, feeling
he owes the city nothing. Later he rescues an aristo girl from some thugs,
and she hires him to protect her family, who she believes are threatened
by demons.

The girl, Jennifer Welles, explains that after a party the night before she
discovered one of her half-brothers dead, eviscerated in the way the demons
used to kill their victims back during the war, and that his twin, her other
half-brother, is missing too. With her father refusing to believe that a
demon could be behind the murder, preferring to put it down to a wild animal,
Jennifer felt she had to get real help, and went looking for Grimjack. The
rest of her family are less than thrilled to have him on the case. That night
he tracks down the gateway the demons need to access this domain using a
Miller Medallion. He finds it, realising with horror that it has been constructed
out of the still living flesh of the missing twin.. Before he can destroy
it he is struck from behind and knocked out.

Gaunt has turned fifty, is sitting drinking in an empty Munden's, and is
being haunted by the spirits of the dead, especially the ones he killed himself.
Spook arrives, and can see the shades too, as Gaunt is manifesting, bringing
them into existence. He denies this, refusing to believe that what he sees
is anything more than a drunken hallucination, until the shade of Katar threatens
Bob. Enraged, he banishes them all to hell, wrecking the bar in the process.
(Timeline wise, this story must be set between #21 and #22. Katar is dead,
meaning its after the Trade Wars, but Gaunt hasn't got the prosthetic yet
(though his injured hand is bandaged), so it's prior to the start of #22)

Gaunt awakens and warns the family of the threat, but the demons pass through
into Cynosure as he is doing so. They possess the local animals, and assault
the house. When Jennifer's mother dies, they break off the attack, causing
some to believe it is she who summoned them. But Gaunt realises the truth;
the only person who wasn't targeted was Jennifer. She goes for him, turning
monstrous as she does so, but he dispatches her with silver and, locating
the gateway once more, throws her decapitated head through it, sealing the
portal. It transpires that Jennifer's mother had been raped during the demon
wars and Jennifer had been born with a demonic split personality which had
been recently awoken.

With the threat now past, Gaunt reconsiders Honesworth's offer to become
a one-man version of Cadre, and takes up that role on his own terms.